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                                                               How Does Social Media Glamorize Mental Illness?

                                                                                               Informative Speech

                                                                                                       Kate Laing

 

     Imagine yourself falling into the typical pattern of a normal mortal who instinctively grabs their phone to scroll through the media. Have you seen someone’s emotions expressed virtually, with the help of a keyboard, within the first 5 minutes of scrolling on your phone? Imagine yourself falling into that trap of feeling melancholy after constantly repeating that damaging, yet simple task, of starting to believe and relate to what you view in the media. I think we all have seen that #imdepressed #because I failed my test post. I’m not saying that one’s mental illness is not justified but how do we get to this point? There are many answers to that broad question, but simply put we find trends of mental illness through social media’s glamorization of mental illness. The article “Information about Mental Illness and the Brain” talks about how our assumptions about mental health aren’t always correct and how “Genetic, environmental, and social factors interact to influence whether someone becomes mentally ill” (“Information about Mental Illness”). Mental Illness is caused by many variables, but let’s talk about the social factor. 

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     The majority of people in society have social media to communicate and share their personal life. While this is true, Kalpana Srivastava in the Industrial Psychiatry Journal throws light on the topic of how the media affects mankind due to its never-ending presence and its “unique ability to alter perception and sway the popular opinion of large numbers of people” (Srivastava). As we continue to popularly scroll we all start to feel what is poorly projected on the screen and our views and mind become altered. Think about when you see a mental health story through Instagram and it is shared by many people to bring awareness. Think about how that person received much attention for that post. This then leads to the desire for one to have the same eyes on them, so they submerge themselves into the unhealthy pattern which then leads to their mental illness so they can feel the same reassurance. What seems like a bad day to some could possibly be diagnosed as depression to others, but either way, some type of sadness is felt when surrounded by social media. The media has become an outlet for our society.

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     Srivastava later explains how the media is part of the problem of mental illness because of the “exaggerated, inaccurate, and comical images they use to portray persons with psychiatric disorders as well as providing incorrect information” (Srivastava). Those who live their life and knowledge through social media aren’t receiving the full truth, because movies sometimes show the mentally ill as crazy and uncontrollable people when that isn’t necessarily true in the real world. On the other hand, social media platforms are filled with people opening up their emotions for the world to see by showing sad art or pictures of people crying but that also isn’t always true in the real world. Mental illness is not always as the movies portray, while it’s painful, it's also different for everyone. The false images of clear-cut mental illness in the media lead people to get a different view because they are constantly surrounded by the false portrayal. 

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     Kellie Herson in “Mad Minds” discusses how when one is surrounded by the dark time of someone with a mental illness  “others’ criticism of, hostility toward, and emotional overinvestment in mentally ill people makes their symptoms more likely to recur and intensify” (Herson). I’m sure many of us here have a time when we showed empathy towards someone. Empathy is completely normal for humans, but when we start empathizing in the wrong way it can be brutal. By exposing ourselves constantly to that source of emotion we can feel much of what the other person is feeling in a more severe, personal way as it affects our daily feelings. This happens to be just like when we grab our phones to scroll through the media. We go through a constant cycle of seeing the same things which will again alter how we function. Our similar symptoms to what the media show will only amplify through the media’s inaccurate romanticization.  

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     As many of us know, mental illness is a rising issue in society today. However, what really interested me was how other people’s emotions attracted other people to mental illness. Kellie Herson states, “mental illness is normalized when attached to certain bodies in specific contexts, yet perceived as a threat to the social body when attached to other bodies in other contexts” (Herson). I realized how mental illnesses are manipulated by the setting we put ourselves in and how we are told certain information that changes how we view mental illness. Imagine yourself continuing to scroll through the screen of emotions needing to be reassured to survive. Imagine yourself completely changing because of that small task.

 

                                                                                                 Bibliography

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Herson, Kellie. “Mad Minds: Theorizing the Intersection of Gender, Sexuality and Mental Illness in Contemporary Media Discourse.” Arizona State University ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2018. Accessed Sept. 18, 2022.

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“Information about Mental Illness and the Brain - NIH ... - NCBI Bookshelf.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health, 2007. Accessed Oct. 3rd, 2022.

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Srivastava, Kalpana. “Media and Mental Health.” Industrial Psychiatry Journal, Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd, 2018. Accessed Sept. 14th, 2022.

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